


Manners, Captain!

by Crane_Among_Celandines



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Other, Unpleasant Food Experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:49:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23628733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crane_Among_Celandines/pseuds/Crane_Among_Celandines
Summary: Queter is invited to dinner by a prominent Radchaai to help arrange a trade deal with the Republic. Sphene attends her.
Relationships: Gem of Sphene/Queter (Imperial Radch)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 27
Collections: Republic of Two Systems Independence Day Exchange 2020





	Manners, Captain!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vass/gifts).



My Captain looked at the place setting. I felt a wave of ambivalence run through her like tepid water.

“So, these things are... tongs? For _fish_?”

“Yes,” I said. “Look, you see how one side has a wider edge?”

She nodded.

“Use that to divide the fish, then turn the tongs over and grasp the piece you just cut. Then, you dip it in the sauce you poured onto your plate.”

Somewhat hesitantly, Queter followed my directions. She ate the fish. “It's good,” she said. “But these tongs are ridiculous. They feel like the worst possible half-way point between chopsticks and a knife and fork.”

“No aristocratic Radchaai,” I said, “would eat with _chopsticks_ at a formal meal.”

My Captain scowled. “I,” she said pointedly, “am not Radchaai. In fact, _none_ of us are. We are Republicans. And I don't see why we are pandering to this... person.”

“Because,” I said, “she has offered to broker a deal to export tea to the Radch in exchange for ruthenium. Which we need, and cannot readily mine from Athoek. And she thinks she is aristocratic and expects a certain sort of welcome.”

“And Seivarden isn't a captain, and isn't officially _important_ enough for her, I know,” sighed Queter. “Why not Breq, then? Surely _she_ knows all the right manners.”

“Because we want someone who will eat a peaceful dinner with Timaaran Lizo, not someone who will start by making pointed remarks about the conditions in her mines and end by breaking her arms if she doesn't turn them over to the ownership of the miners.”

She snorted. “That _does_ sound like Breq. Fine, what's _that_ ,” she said, indicating the nutcracker.

“Phlanges-crushing pliers,” I replied, straight-faced. “You use them to ritually sever the left index finger of your dinner companion.”

I felt a brief jolt of horror from her, followed immediately by the peppery sense of wry amusement. “I don't see a lot of nine-fingered Radchaai,” she remarked.

“Well,” I said. “ _No-one_ has proper table manners these days. They are for cracking nuts,” I added. “You place the nut between the two sides and squeeze like so.”

My Captain smiled at me. “Radchaai and their gloves.” She took a pair of nuts from the bowl, and closed her hand around them. Her fingers worked for a moment, the muscles of her forearm sliding and flexing, and there was a series of crunching noises. She opened her hand to reveal the nuts, shelled and somewhat crushed.

“If you want to impress her with our barbarity, that's perfect,” I said. She had been spending a lot of time building muscle lately. Once, of course, all my bodies had been augmented. But the one I wore now had been purchased from a corrupt Radchaai, many years ago, and I had never had the equipment or the knowledge necessary to perform those types of surgery myself. So now, my Captain was stronger than I, and I found myself remembering the dance we had shared at the festival, and how her arms had felt around me.

Queter sent me a little burst of bubbly satisfaction as she saw me flush. She wanted to have sex with me – had ever since the festival – but neither of us were ready to acknowledge that aloud. I held up a slotted spoon. “Crouton spoon,” I said. “You use it to remove the pieces of toasted bread from your soup. You're supposed to eat them all, and then drink the soup from the bowl.”

She looked at me in exasperation. “I have never seen or heard of _any_ of these utensils. And how likely is it we'll have _nuts_ as part of the meal here? All the ones on Athoek are lethally poisonous.” She paused. “No, _almost_ all the nuts on Athoek are lethally poisonous, there's also one which just causes crippling digestive problems.”

I rolled my eyes, a mannerism which I had recently cultivated because I knew it delighted her. The Usurper's second-rate terraforming programme had apparently produced a lot of these little quirks in worlds which were supposed to have ecosystems suitable for Humans. “Fine, there probably won't be nuts. But we don't know. Citizen Lizo might bring some food with her – what if the speciality of her province is 'bowl of mixed nuts with nuts'?”

“Nut-based edible sculptures,” Queter deadpanned.

“I've seen worse,” I said. “Outradch had a traditional dish which was a sort of tent made from seaweed, containing crustaceans which had been boiled alive. It was considered appropriate to arrange them in an assortment of sizes, as though they were a family on a seaside holiday.”

My Captain gave me a long, suspicious look.

“I'm quite serious,” I said. “Ask Liutenant Seivarden. It was called a beach-front platter.”

She shuddered. “Ah, _civilisation_.”

A few days later, we stood outside the Lizo residence, looking up at its antique facade. It was in a moderately prestigious part of the station; not the choicest places near the concourse, but one of the older residential districts.

“It's ugly,” Queter noted.

It was. It had the look of something designed by a person who thought that complexity was synonymous with beauty, and there was not a square meter of it which had escaped being engraved, embossed, or gilded.

 _Diplomacy,_ I said silently to her.

She gestured, and I knocked on the door. A servant opened it, a young person in azure and gold with her hair cropped very short. “The good citizen is expecting you,” she said. “Please, allow me to show you to the dining room.” She led us through a broad, airy atrium, the floor tiled in a disquieting black-and-white pattern, to a high door of overwrought synthetic wood. She preceded us inside, and bowed. “Captain Queter,” she announced.

My Captain stopped. “And,” she said.

The servant straightened, turned back in surprise.

Queter gestured to me. “I am not here alone.”

The young person opened her mouth, but before she could speak, the occupant of the room emerged. It was our first sight in person of Timaaran Lizo, and she did not impress me. She was a sallow, bony person, and the lines around her mouth suggested she smiled often. The skin around her eyes was smooth and unmarked. “The ancillary?” she said, in a tone of mild rebuke. “One hardly needs to announce equipment, surely!”

I felt my Captain's muscles tense. But she said only, “ _Gem of Sphene_ is a republican of the Two Systems, with all rights and privileges that entails.”

Timaaran's over-plucked brows climbed towards her artfully piled hair. “My!” she exclaimed. “Such _novel_ customs. And in a place so _recently_ bereft of the Radch!”

My Captain said nothing, only smiled politely.

“I apologise,” said Timaaran, with a passable effort at sincerity. “It is so easy to forget one is in a foreign place here.”

“We beg the citizen's great indulgence,” said Queter, “for any inconveniences she may suffer as a guest of the Republic.” It was a monstrously politic phrase, and I felt her jaw work around the words as she carefully chose them in place of the ones which were upon her lips.

“Shall we dine?” said Timaaran, with an elegant gesture at the table.

Queter took her seat opposite Timaaran, and I stood behind her right shoulder. I felt a sudden surge of horror from her. _What the fuck is this?_ she asked. I looked down.

The place setting contained none of the implements I had shown her. Instead, there were a pair of chopsticks, or possibly skewers, a small sieve which looked rather like a tea-strainer, and some sort of tiny mechanical device with a handle on one side and an opening on the other.

 _I have no idea_ , I said. _Watch our host and copy her_.

I felt a surge of irritation from my Captain, hot and sharp and brittle.

The young servant we had seen earlier brought out a pair of small bowls and set them on the table. Timaaran picked up the little mechanical object and removed part of it, revealing a cavity. She reached for a large vase at the centre of the table, which I had taken to be decorative, then stopped.

“Oh, where are my manners? After you, Captain.” She removed the lid, and gestured.

“Most gracious of you,” said Queter. She reached into the vase, and I felt a sudden shock of fear and a stab of disgust, so strong that I had to struggle not to pull her away and put myself between her and the table.

Her hand emerged, holding a long, writhing insect. “Do pardon me,” she said. “I'm not entirely familiar with _regional_ cuisine. I take it...” she picked up her own little object with her free hand and opened it as Timaaran had. Placing the insect inside, she replaced the cover. “And one turns this little handle, yes?” I felt a simmering, vengeful delight from her as she suited action to words, producing a shower of finely ground insect which she sprinkled over her bowl of liquid. “Oh how _quaint_!” she exclaimed with a little laugh. “Live food, how _marvellously_ primitive. And this little device,” she continued. “It reminds me of a Valskaayan children's toy."

 _Sphene_ , she sent to me, _turn off my sense of taste, would you?_

I could do that, of course. The implants which allowed me access to her senses made it perfectly possible to alter or suppress them. But it was not done. Ships were not supposed to control their crew that way.

I did as she asked.

She drank the soup, smiling as she made eye contact with Timaaran.

The meal continued in this vein, with Timaaran producing increasingly recondite or horrible dishes, and my Captain cheerfully consuming them. At one point, she asked for a second helping of a pâté made from birds' brains that had been allowed to grow a particularly pungent mould, possibly because she had noticed Timaaran gag slightly as she opened the tureen. “So _flavourful,_ ” she said. “Sphene, we simply _must_ get some of that Ychana mushroom cheese for citizen Timaaran, I'm sure she would love it!”

“Of course, Captain,” I said. “I shall have a wheel delivered.” The cheese, matured in the undergardens where the mushrooms were cultivated, had such a repulsive stench that there had been serious talk of prohibiting its sale.

Timaaran, gradually realising that her efforts to embarrass or distress my Captain were futile, became increasingly unsubtle in her barbs as the dinner went on, moving from oblique hints at the general lack of civilisation in the Republic, to less-oblique hints about my Captain's background. Finally, over dessert – a remarkably normal dish of mandarin sorbet served with some sort of bitter chocolate biscuit – she said: “Of course, Captain Queter, I suppose you would rather have a _real_ ship, a Sword, or a Justice, or even a Mercy.”

My Captain set down her spoon, very carefully. “Begging the citizen's very great indulgence, but I am not sure as to your meaning.”

Timaaran gestured negligently. “Well,” she said, “ _Gem of Sphene_ , I mean, _really_. I suppose it's only to be expected though. A mad ship, _choosing_ a _field worker_ for a captain.”

I felt the anger run through my Captain like molten iron from her head down to her toes. She stood up, calmly. She picked up the sorbet glass, carefully, and held it up to the light.

Then she threw it at Timaaran's head, very hard.

Timaaran fell out of her chair, screaming and clutching her forehead, which was bleeding profusely. My Captain turned and walked quickly from the room, barging past the servant who had come running at the commotion, and I followed on her heel. _Station_ , I sent, _please send a medical team to the residence of Timaaran Lizo._ Aloud, to my Captain, I said lightly, “So, we won't be making any trade deals with Lizo?”

She was so angry that she could not speak. _No,_ she sent. Followed by a wave of bone-deep rage which almost made me choke. _No-one talks about my ship like that._

I stopped. “ _That_ was what made you snap?”

She stopped. Looked at me, puzzled. “Yes?

Her lips were hot and sweet, her back was broad and solid under my hands, and I didn't know how I had come to be holding her.

She leaned back a little. I felt her breathless wonder. “ _Sphene_...” she said. “Are you... sure?”

“I...” _I don't know._

She gave me a long, searching look. “Then let's go back to my quarters, and talk about it.”

And we did.

**Author's Note:**

> Another in my loose series of works about Sphene. I really should collect these at this point.  
> We know almost nothing whatsoever about Radchaai dining habits or cutlery, the most explicitly detailed mention of food we get is when Breq is in mourning and we learn that they are served bread and things to spread on it.  
> Given the breadth of the Radch, however, and its tendency to subsume annexed cultures, I think it's reasonable to assume that there is in fact no real overarching "Radchaai Food", save possibly a tendency for them to avoid foods which must be eaten with the fingers because of their gloves.  
> This piece was always meant to be a bit more towards the crackfic end of the scale anyway, so I made the various dishes and implements pretty silly.


End file.
